The Price Advantage

Praise for THE PRICE ADVANTAGE SECOND EDITION
"This book is a treasure—a practical yet intellectually sound guide to pricing that is applicable to both large and small companies. Frankly, in all my years writing about economics and covering corporate decision making, I have not seen pricing strategy and tactics explained so clearly as in this book." —Michael Mandel, former chief economist, BusinessWeek, and Editor–in–Chief, Visible Economy LLC
"This book is both insightful and practical. Many companies overlook the substantial profit opportunities from smart pricing. The authors show you not only where to look for, but also how to capture and sustain those opportunities." —James M. Kilts, former chairman and CEO, The Gillette Company
"The Price Advantage is very straightforward and direct, with concise and easily applied coverage of each and every topic."—David J. Reibstein, Marketing Professor, The Wharton School
The Second Edition of The Price Advantage, written by three preeminent experts at McKinsey & Company, is the most pragmatic and insightful book on pricing available.
Based on in–depth, firsthand experience with hundreds of companies, as well as significant investments in new pricing research, this book is designed to be a comprehensive guide for managers through the maze of pricing issues.
The authors examine state–of–the–art approaches for analyzing and improving pricing performance, demonstrate those approaches with real case studies, and draw a pricing excellence blueprint for companies to follow. In good economic times or bad, achieving the price advantage is critical to corporate performance and profitability.

Spis treści:
Preface.
Acknowledgements.
Part One Pricing Fundamentals.
Chapter 1: Introduction.
The Power of 1 Percent.
The Price/Volume Tradeoff.
Market Forces Add Pressure.
The Nobility Of Pricing Excelle nce.
Why The Price Advantage Is So Rare.
Chapter 2: Components of Pricing Excellence.
An Integrated Approach.
An Interdependent Hierarchy.
Applying To Your Company – Pinpointing The Opportunity.
Part Two Exploring the Levels.
Chapter 3: Transactions.
The Pocket Price Waterfall.
The Pocket Price Band.
The Soundco Radio Company Case.
Pocket Margin Waterfall And Band.
Alen Glass Company Case.
Chapter 4: Customer Value.
Mapping Value.
Creating A Value Map.
Making Moves On The Value Map.
Putting Customers On The Value Map.
Value Profiling.
Chapter 5: Market Strategy.
Profiting from better price predictions.
Planning for an expected price change.
Maintaining optimal production and capacity.
Improving pricing conduct.
Influencing the elements of pricing conduct improvement.
A word on followership.
Chapter 6: Pricing Infrastructure.
Processes – what are the most critical types of pricing decisions for your business?
Organization – Who′s running the pricing profit center?
Performance management – How should we recognize and reward pricing performance?
Systems and tools – no magic bullet exists.
Part Three Unique Events.
Chapter 7: Postmerger Pricing.
A temporary window of opportunity.
Tremendous opportunities at each pricing level.
Avoiding common postmerger traps.
Antitrust laws.
Chapter 8: Price Wars.
Why Price Wars Should Be Avoided.
What Really Causes Price Wars.
Staying Out Of Price Wars.
Getting Out Of Price Wars.
When A Price War Might Make Sense.
Part Four Expanding the Boundaries.
Chapter 9: Legal Degrees of Freedom.
Pricing decisions that raise red flags.
Minimizing risks while meeting pricing objectives.
Calling in the attorneys.
Chapter 10: Lifecycle Pricing.
What makes lifecycle pricing tough.
Chapter 11: Pricing Architecture.
Managing price perception.
Influencing customer behavior.
Price architecture based on supplier role.
Part Five Advanced Topics.
Chapter 12: Complexity Management.
Section One: Custom–configured Products.
High–Count Product Lines.
DISTRIBUTED SALES MODELS.
Chapter 13: Tailored Value.
Section One: Price Segmentation.
Section Two: Tiered products and Services.
Section Three: New Products.
Section Four: “Razor/Razor Blades” Offerings.
Section 5: Solutions.
Chapter 14: Software and Information Products.
Unique Characteristics that Impact Pricing.
Exploring the Elements of Pricing.
Part Six Making Change Happen.
Chapter 15: Pricing Transformation.
Designing a clear change program.
Accelerating and embedding change.
Chapter 16 The Monnarch Battery Case.
The Monnarch Battery Company.
Transactions.
Customer value.
Market strategy.
Capturing the Monnarch pricing opportunity.
Hard–wiring the change.
Epilogue.
Appendix 1: Pocket Price and Pocket Margin Waterfalls.
Appendix 2: Antitrust Issues.
U.S. Pricing Law.
EU pricing law.
Appendix 3: List of Acronyms and Abbreviations.
Appendix 4: About the Web–based Tool: Periscope.
About the Authors.
Index.

Nota biograficzna:

WALTER L. BAKER is a partner in the Atlanta office of the international consulting firm of McKinsey & Company. Since joining McKinsey in 1998, he has worked with clients across multiple industries in the areas of pricing, sales, marketing, and strategy. With particular focus on the technology and industrial sectors, he has authored articles on pricing in CMO magazine, the McKinsey Quarterly, and the Harvard Business Review.
MICHAEL V. MARN is a partner in the Cleveland office of McKinsey & Company. He joi ned McKinsey in 1977 and has developed some of the most widely used analytic approaches for identifying and capturing opportunities in pricing. He has written articles on pricing that have appeared in publications including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Harvard Business Review.
CRAIG C. ZAWADA is a partner in the Calgary office of McKinsey & Company. Since joining McKinsey in 1997, he has worked with companies across multiple industries, helping them to identify and capture improvements in pricing. He is widely published in the area of pricing strategy, with articles appearing in the Harvard Business Review, Mergers & Acquisitions, and the McKinsey Quarterly.

Okładka tylna:

Praise for THE PRICE ADVANTAGE SECOND EDITION
"This book is a treasure—a practical yet intellectually sound guide to pricing that is applicable to both large and small companies. Frankly, in all my years writing about economics and covering corporate decision making, I have not seen pricing strategy and tactics explained so clearly as in this book." —Michael Mandel, former chief economist, BusinessWeek, and Editor–in–Chief, Visible Economy LLC
"This book is both insightful and practical. Many companies overlook the substantial profit opportunities from smart pricing. The authors show you not only where to look for, but also how to capture and sustain those opportunities." —James M. Kilts, former chairman and CEO, The Gillette Company
"The Price Advantage is very straightforward and direct, with concise and easily applied coverage of each and every topic."—David J. Reibstein, Marketing Professor, The Wharton School
The Second Edition of The Price Advantage, written by three preeminent experts at McKinsey & Company, is the most pragmatic and insightful book on pricing available.
Based on in–depth, firsthand experience with hundreds of companies, as well as significant investments i n new pricing research, this book is designed to be a comprehensive guide for managers through the maze of pricing issues.
The authors examine state–of–the–art approaches for analyzing and improving pricing performance, demonstrate those approaches with real case studies, and draw a pricing excellence blueprint for companies to follow. In good economic times or bad, achieving the price advantage is critical to corporate performance and profitability.